Mustafa Kamil Pasha (Arabic: مصطفى كامل, IPA: [mosˈtˤɑfɑ ˈkæːmel]) (August 14, 1874 ⁠– February 10, 1908) was an Egyptian lawyer, journalist, and nationalist activist.

[3] As a passionate nationalist, he supported Egypt's khedive, Abbas Hilmi II, who strongly opposed the British occupation.

[4] The American historian Michael Laffan described Kamil as "...a spellbinding orator, tireless traveller, prolific writer and charismatic personality".

[7] In a speech delivered in French in Toulouse on 4 July 1895, Kamil accused Lord Cromer of "purposively appointing incapable, indifferent or traitorous men at the head of Egyptian government ministries and other administrative positions.

[8] From 1895 to 1907, Kamil visited France every year, always giving speeches and writing newspaper articles criticizing British rule in Egypt.

[9] However, Kamil's Francophile rhetoric was calculated as he told Abbas Hilmis's secretary in a letter in September 1895: "Like any realistic person knows, nations only cater to their best interests.

"[7] Kamil sometimes exaggerated the Francophilia of Egypt to win French support, as in a speech in Paris on 18 June 1899 when he said: "The war which your neighbors from across the English-Channel have been waging against your cultural influence and prestige on the banks of the Nile is without a name.

He also sought co-operation with France and the Ottoman Empire, but later he gradually grew more independent of outside backers, and appealed mainly to the Egyptian people to demand the end of the British occupation.

Kamil often worked as an unofficial diplomat, touring the capitals of Europe on behalf of the Khedive, seeking support to end the British occupation of Egypt.

[3] Like most Egyptians of his generation, Kamil saw the Khedives as the legitimate rulers of Egypt, who in turn owned their loyalty to the Ottoman Sultan-Caliph in Constantinople.

"[4] In 1900, Kamil founded the newspaper Al Liwa' ("The Standard") as a platform for his views and utilized his skill as both a journalist and lawyer.

[14] Through Kamil was not willing to reject publicly the pan-Islamic message of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II aka "Abdul Hamid the Damned", his writings tended to imply that the Muslims of the Egyptian al-watan had more in common with each other than they did with Muslims from other lands, and Islam was presented by him more as a means for unifying the Egyptian people than the end.

"[8] When writing for European, usually French audiences, Kamil often attacked Cromer's claim that the average Egyptian Muslim was a bloodthirsty "fanatic" looking for any chance to murder Christians.

[18] To counter Cromer's "fanaticism" argument, Kamil coined the slogan "Libre chez nous, hospitaliers pour tous" ("Free in our country, hospitable to all"), which become his motto.

[18] Much of Kamil's writings anticipated later Third World nationalism as he gave extensive coverage in Al-Liwa to independence movements in India (modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) and the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia), suggesting that independence activists in both places shared a common predicament with people like himself, as all were members of an oppressed "East" dominated by the West.

[20] In 1900, Kamil who had hoped that France might intervene in the Boer War on behalf of the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State wrote: "What a lesson for us who counted on Europe!

"[21] After the Entente Cordial of 1904 and the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-05, Kamil became ardent Japanophile, praising the Japanese as an "Eastern" people who had modernized and as a role model for Egypt.

[22] Much of Kamil's writings in Al-Liwa urged Abdul Hamid to be more like the Meiji Emperor in giving the Ottoman empire "vigor" in embracing modernizing reforms.

[22] On 28 March 1904, Kamil wrote to a French friend, Juliette Adam, that he was writing a book on Japan "so as to explain to the people how to rise, and to encourage them by the current striving of the Japanese".

The chief reason which has pushed me to do it is to profit by the current of great sympathy that my compatriots have for the Japanese to tell them that those people are so strong only because they are patriotic.

In his 1904 book The Rising Sun, Kamil wrote: "If the Europeans had been genuine in their propaganda and speech that they wanted to civilize all human kind and that they did not enter countries except to take their people into their hands to mobilise them on the path to civilisation, then they would have been pleased in their anticipation of the progress of the yellow race and its development and reckoned Japan the greatest of civilised factors.

[16] The message was made explicit when Kamil compared the late Tokugawa bakufu, unable to stand up to foreign powers who pushed Japan around, with the present state of Islamic world, likewise unable to stand up to foreigners, and expressed the hope that both Abdul Hamid II and Abbas II would be able to emulate the Meiji Emperor.

[13] Kamil wrote with admiration how State Shinto unified the Japanese people into one, declaring: "The spirit of change and national pride crept among all [the Japanese], after which the individual who had believed that his village was the whole country began to realise that the entire kingdom was a country for everyone; and that no matter how remote its parts or isolated its regions, any foreign intervention in the meanest of its villages would disturb its peace and likewise hurt them".

[25] Kamil's message was that the Egyptian Turco-Circassian aristocracy needed to be more like the Japanese elite in pursuing reforms that would end their special status for the greater good of Egypt.

[15] Kamil in The Rising Sun drew a contrast between the "evil" of the Russian empire, "enriched by every colonialism" vs. the "rightful" anger of the Japanese at being "cheated" out of their conquests from the First Sino-Japanese war in 1894-95.

[27] In his writings, Kamil expressed anger at the British for, in his view, lumping the Egyptians in with the population of sub-Saharan Africa, instead of giving them separate treatment.

[28] Kamil's cause was strengthened by the Denshawai incident on 13 June 1906 in which four peasants were hastily tried and hanged for having assaulted British Army officers who were hunting pigeons in their village.

[5] In an article in Le Figaro on 11 July 1906, Kamil wrote: "A tragic affair took place in the Egyptian delta village of Dinshaway, which has managed to emotionally touch humanity in its entirety.

[29] Kamil translated his article into English and mailed it to every member of Parliament, where giving speeches all over Britain recounting the Denshawai affair.